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The “60 Minutes” segment was filled with so many factual discrepancies that the transcript was made unavailable with this disclaimer: “This segment has been deleted at the request of CBS News for legal or copyright reasons.”

In a nutshell, Erhard's message was this: If you are in a rut, the problem isn't your parents, your boss or the system, it's you. Take responsibility, Erhard said, and you can transform your life overnight.

There is only one appropriate response to these allegations, to heal and restore my family. And that is what I will do. To respond to the accusations at this time, would only further publicly exploit my family, and there has already been enough of that.

Werner Erhard, last sighted in Costa Rica, has dropped his megabucks libel suit against CBS' 60 Minutes, which did a number on him about a year ago. Nice guy that he is, he sent checks for $100 to each of the 20 defendants to cover the filing fee they had to pay to answer his charges of 'a conspiracy to defame and ruin me'.

60 Minutes was about to air a story in which one of Erhard's daughters claimed he had molested her and raped her sister. (Erhard denied the allegations, and the daughter later said that a journalist induced her to make them with the promise of a million-dollar book deal.) The IRS was taking an interest in an elaborate system of companies that Erhard's lawyer Harry Margolis had set up for him. (One of Erhard's lawyers says that Erhard and the IRS have resolved their differences.) The implication in the media was that Erhard simply fled to avoid these troubles.